Monday, April 29, 2013

Something to sort of maybe believe in for a little while

The shift from mass communication
to networked communication has changed culture by altering not only how we
connect with one another but how we support one other. Traditional activism, or
offline activism, has often relied on face-to-face networks to influence
certain issues and causes. Protests, boycotts, political rallies, strikes,
sit-ins, fundraising campaigns, and petitions, among many other forms of
social, political, and environmental efforts are forms of traditional activism
aimed at persuading others in favor or opposition to particular causes. In the
era of networked communication, however, activism has evolved in significant
ways:

Networked communication has made
reaching new members and connecting with existing members much easier and more
cost-effective;

Online and mobile social
movements eliminate the need for “copresence” in the same space and time; and

Despite the benefits to
increasing social awareness, however, one real question is whether or not these
new forms of activism actually translate into significant social or political
change. This paper will therefore look at some of the criticisms of digital activism.
A potential downside of activism through web or mobile technology is that it
does not always require a great deal of personal investment on the part of the
activist. The term “slacktivism” is often used to describe slacker activism, or
feel good measures often via mobile or online networks that require minimal
effort on the part of the participant. When does this new model of activism
work and when does it not? This paper will conclude by identifying some of the
conditions that make activism via networked communication more effective.

Whether an issue at hand is an
oil pipeline in one’s home state or a revolution several thousand miles away,
networked communication allows members from diverse and disparate backgrounds
to act collectively to support or create pressure for social, political,
economic, or environmental changes. Most obviously, online and mobile activism
can be economically cheaper than traditional activism. Petitions, rallies,
boycotts, marches, fundraising, donations, and protests, among other forms of
activism are largely organized these days at least in some form via networked
communication. Prior to the internet, email, and social media, organizing these
collective actions required a great deal of investment in time, face-to-face communication,
and resources. Petitions, for example, required volunteers or temporary workers
to canvas communities to gain signatures to raise awareness for causes. In the
era of networked communication, not only is petitioning far less expensive, but
it is more effective at garnering “signatures”. PetitionOnline.com, for
example, is a free website for creating and disseminating petitions. One entry,
titled “Stop the dolphin and whale killings in Taiji”, is addressed to the
Prime Minister of Japan. The petition currently has nearly 1,304,000 electronic
signatures (Petition Online, 2013). MoveOn.org is one such activist group that
began as an online petition (in response to the ensuing impeachment of former
President Clinton). MoveOn originated as a petition “that its founders sent to
friends, who sent it to their friends, who forwarded in on again until the
petition…gathered over a half a million signatures” (Earl and Kimport, 2011,
p.73). All of this was accomplished with relatively low-cost participation and with
an equally minimal investment of time required by its supporters. Castells
(2004) called this advantage of networked communication “scalability” because it
could expand, often organically, to accommodate countless new members.

A second important change that
has occurred in the shift from mass communication to networked communication is
that it is no longer necessary to maintain copresence in the same space and
time. Earl and Kimport (2011) created a distinction between “being together
versus working together” (p.123). The authors argued that meaningful collective
action can be taken online between individuals all over the world who share the
same values or goals. Supporters of the micro-lending organization, Kiva.org,
for example, can help to alleviate poverty by joining other lenders to fulfill
small loans for entrepreneurs in the developing world who may otherwise not be
able to acquire a loan through traditional means. Lenders are able to pool
their resources together, often in small $25.00 increments, to complete loan
requests which are then paid back over 12 to 18 months. To date, Kiva has
attracted over 922,000 lenders and granted loans of nearly $425 million to
borrowers in 67 countries (Kiva, 2013). Not only is the Kiva model not reliant
on the exclusive copresence of members in the same space and time, but it is
likely Kiva works largely because of
the lack of copresence. A single Kiva loan of $1000 may be filled by 40
lenders, each of whom is in a different part of the world and lending for
different reasons. It is difficult to imagine how such microloans could have
been filled prior to networked communication where lenders can now micro-target
where they want their loan money to go. This is in contrast to the Sally
Struthers “Christian Children’s Fund” commercials of the 1980s, where
supporters donated “about 70 cents a day” to a combined fund with no real say about
where their donations went.

A third way the shift to
networked communication has affected activism is the speed with which
activists, supporters, and donors can mobilize or respond to issues and
tragedies. When disaster strikes or a tragedy befalls individuals in one’s own
country or abroad, charity can be offered almost instantly. In the wake of the
2010 earthquake in Haiti, for example, the Red Cross raised over $103 million
in the following week. Remarkably, $22 million was collected via SMS text messages (New York Times,
2010). Donors were able to make small $5 or $10 contributions by simply
submitting a code by text message to the Red Cross. Today, websites like Facebook,
Twitter, or even TeaPartyPatriots.org act like efficient “phone trees” where
members can rapidly disseminate information to one another.

Castells (2004) argued that
because of the lack of centralization of networked communication, there is also
a level of survivability and flexibility afforded activist causes. The
countless nodes of networked communication mean that if one node is cut off, by
an authoritarian state for example, information can find its way to the public
forum via alternative nodes. Protests can be stoked by Twitter and mobilized quickly,
and would-be censors can be circumnavigated.

Each of these three changes has
significantly affected how individuals participate in social, environmental,
political and economic causes. One question, however, is whether or not
networked communication actually enables members to feel committed to a cause
and to each other. A sense of “we-ness”, as Earl and Kimport (2011) argued, is
needed for a social movement to root itself in a public’s consciousness.
Malcolm Gladwell (2010) expanded on this idea of “we-ness” and posited that
successful social movements must have strong tie-ins, meaning that effective
activist networks need real-world bonds, not loose feel-good arrangements. In
his New Yorker article Gladwell cited several seminal campaigns during the
civil rights movement of the 1960s. In each, members and protesters faced
strong, sometimes physically violent, opposition. Threats were made,
demonstrators were often arrested or beaten, and churches were set ablaze.
Maintaining group cohesion during such turbulence required that members felt
invested in the causes they were advocating for, and more likely than not
members had close friends who were also part of the movements. These strong tie-ins,
according to Gladwell, are exactly what separate traditional activism from the
newer activism involving social media.

Due to the limited amount of time
a participant is required to invest, some might argue that the networked
activism of today is relatively risk-free and a poor substitute for traditional
person-to-person activism. The examples listed above, PetitionOnline, Kiva, and
the Red Cross, while generally effective at raising awareness (as well as
money), do not require a significant investment of time.

The term “slacktivism” has been
coined to describe these acts of “doing good without having to do much at all”
(Lublin, 2010, para. 3). Slacktivism includes “liking” a particular topic or
issue on Facebook; changing one’s profile to a pink “=” to show support for gay
rights; “re-tweeting” a meme on Twitter; wearing yellow rubber bracelets to
support cancer research; or sharing a You Tube video that raises awareness of
the atrocities of a warlord in Africa.

The latter example refers to the
Kony 2012 campaign, which gives credence to the arguments of those with more skeptical
views of slacktivism. The campaign, which was essentially a well-produced 30
minute film created by a non-governmental organization called Invisible
Children, Inc., was launched in order to bring awareness to the war crimes of
the African militia group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, and to capture and
arrest its leader, Joseph Kony, by the end of the year.

The video, which currently
has nearly 100 million views on You Tube, was a social media phenomenon.
Despite the awareness the video brought to the issue of child soldiers in
Africa, the movement was built on a very flimsy foundation. Like other
slacktivist efforts, the Kony 2012 campaign encouraged participants to perform
only simple measures to support the cause, such as putting up posters,
tweeting, and sharing the video through social media. Perhaps the main
criticism of the campaign, however, is that very little change has been
affected and that the movement diminished rapidly due to the lack of organizational
ties within Africa. To date, Joseph Kony has yet to be arrested.

The Kony 2012 campaign
demonstrates the power of a story over the cause. Schlumpf (2012) identified
that one such downside of movements with such weak commitment to the cause is
their tendency to give supporters (who “like”, “tweet”, share videos, or put up
posters) the impression that they have done their part. The Kony 2012 campaign
lacked sustainability and actual on-site integration. The minimal effect that
the campaign achieved seems to validate Gladwell’s (2010) criticism. When the
news cycle moved on, the support for the movement faded as well.

A lack of commitment to a cause
or investment in the outcome risks turning a cause into a fad, or more cynical
yet, a clever marketing campaign, as many t-shirts, magnets, or wristbands reveal.
Temporary awareness is much easier to create than long-term change. The
PetitionOnline example mentioned earlier is an example of what Lublin (2010)
called inch-deep activism. Yasuo Fukuda, the Prime Minister of Japan to which
the “stop the whale killings in Taiji” letter was addressed, actually resigned
his office in 2008. Despite this, signatures to the “Prime Minister” keep
rolling in. One must ask, therefore, what the purpose of the petition is really
for. Is it to maintain awareness of an environmental issue or to actually create
change?

A similar argument might be made
about the “Twitter Revolutions” that occurred in Moldova and Iran in 2009. In
his 2010 New Yorker article, Gladwell presented a rather skeptical view of the
effectiveness of activism via social media. These revolutions more resembled
Western hype than actual revolutions. Regarding Moldova, he argued that very
few Twitter accounts actually existed during the “revolution”, and in Iran most
of the tweets were written in English. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder
why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any
language other than Farsi” (Gladwell, 2010, para. 5). While the digital divide
might account for part of this, Gladwell makes a fairly convincing case that at
least with regard to these two revolutions very little long-term social change
actually occurred.

Gleick (1999) might argue that
slacktivism, or its other neologism “clicktivism” is simply an inevitable
byproduct of people living “on internet time”. The speed of the internet and
the connectivity of mobile communication create a high degree of efficiency,
but it also leads to people feeling busier and overloaded with information. The
pauses for reflection that were afforded individuals prior to networked
communication seem much rarer in the crisis-oriented, perpetual “breaking news”
cycle of the digital era. Slacktivism arises partly because clicking on a link
or a “like” button is quite literally the least a person can do, or at least
feel he or she has time for, and yet still maintain membership with others who
support the particular cause. “It is the way of keeping in contact with
someone, anyone, who will assure you that you are not alone” (Stein, as cited
by Gleick, 1999, p.92). In a way, Slacktivism is a method of demonstrating that
one’s opinion actually matters.

But does it matter? One of the
primary criticisms of slacktivism is that it is heavy on attention-getting, but
low on achieving outcomes. Is encouraging people to think differently about an
issue via a meme on social media any different than signing a petition on a
street corner? As the Kony 2012 campaign demonstrated, even ineffective
movements can raise awareness of causes that would otherwise remain hidden from
the public’s view. While it is difficult to measure hearts and minds, as
McCafferty (2011) noted, it is possible to quantify clicks, site visits, and
sentiment analysis to determine what is receiving the public’s attention. In
such cases social media might indeed influence the national and international
news agenda. For some, simply receiving the support of others, even if only
online, is enough to make a difference in their lives. The It Gets Better project, for example, is an online platform for communicating with LGBT youth
and to combat harassment and bullying.

The purpose of the project is essentially to support individuals who are
feeling hopeless and to assure them that life does indeed get better. Like
Kiva, It Gets Better works because it does not rely on copresence in the same
physical space. It Gets Better is effective because it creates a safe
environment where participants can seek support, which might not always be the
case for LGBT youth in a traditional face-to-face environment.

Not surprising, digital activism
is most effective when it makes use of existing networks. The Arab Spring,
which is often heralded as a successful social media revolution, required old
school methods in addition to networked communication. The revolutions in Egypt
and Tunisia did not take place solely on mobile phone screens, but in the
streets where butts were in seats and boots were on the ground. It required
showing up in person and thus more resembled “old school organizing, with a
digital edge” (Karpf, as cited by McCaffety, 2011, p.18). In this way, digital
activism is not necessarily a substitute for traditional activism, but an
extension of traditional activism. Tea Party Patriots, for example, uses its
website to mobilize its existing real-world networks. The website, a platform
for recruiting and connecting members of the political group and for promoting
and fundraising for conservative and libertarian causes, is in fact remarkably
simple to navigate. “JOIN NOW!” in huge block letters is the first thing a
viewer sees upon visiting the site. Atop that are tabs listing how to donate
money, information about joining an “accountability” project, and ways to join
or create an existing Tea Party group. There are also ways to track down Tea
Party rallies in one’s neck of the woods, a link to party literature
(purchasable from Amazon.com) and, if one is so inclined, the opportunity to
buy, I'm not joking, a Tea Party Patriots coloring book.

Regardless of one’s political
views, it is difficult to deny the effectiveness of the Tea Party Patriots
website. Right away a visitor to the site can get involved in the organization
and feel invested in the issues at his or her own level of commitment. The
online site serves as a meeting place to raise awareness for Tea Party causes,
and it connects members to one another both online and in-person.

While the Tea Party has by most
accounts lost steam and popularity among the general population since it
emerged as a full-grown national movement in 2010,the website still exists as an effective way of promoting party causes and for
facilitating strong real-world tie-ins out of online networks where connections
might otherwise be weaker. Despite the promotion from conservative mass media
networks like Fox News, and political pundits like Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity,
and Glen Beck, there is still an element of actual boots on the ground,
localization, and grassroots organization of the Tea Party that makes it,
politically at least, an effective activist movement.

In this respect, digital activism
shares more similarities with traditional activism than it does with
slacktivism. So what are some conditions that make slacktivism effective? This
paper argues that slacktivism can be effective if 1. Individuals are invested
in the outcomes; 2. There is an element of sustainability, trust, and
credibility; and 3. It relies on the lack of copresence in the same space and
time. Not surprising, the slacktivist efforts that tend to be effective are
those that arise in response to stories receiving the public’s attention.
During the triple earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster in Japan, the earthquake
in Haiti, and the Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, people all over the world
texted monetary support and donated money to the Red Cross. In these cases, it
can be argued that slacktivism was effective. Far from being the least someone
can do, giving actual money can make a tangible difference to organizations in
need of resources. Texting $10 to the Red Cross is quick, easy, and because the
Red Cross has achieved a level of credibility, the charity is likely to go where
it is intended.

Other forms of digital activism,
like Kiva or the It Gets Better project, are successful not only because
members are invested in the outcome, but because they would be largely ineffective
without the tools of networked communication. Both organizations are generally
trusted by their members who are often personally as well as often financially
invested in the outcomes. FreeRice.org is another such slacktivist site where
supporters can literally click their way toward alleviating world hunger. Because
the site is owned by the United Nations World Food Programme, there is a level
of sustainability. Users are able to answer multiple-choice trivia questions where
every correct answer results in 10 grains of rice being donated to the World
Food Programme. The free rice is made possible by sponsors who advertise on the
site and who donate on a per click basis. The website’s affiliation with the
WFP bestows on it credibility, and because users are expected to answer
questions correctly to achieve results, some level of personal investment in
the outcome is required. Lastly, like Kiva and It Gets Better, it is difficult
to imagine a Free Rice campaign being even remotely as effective via
traditional offline means.

The shift from mass communication
to networked communication has led to innovative ways of supporting one
another. This paper has argued that digital activism is cheaper, easier, and
faster than traditional activism, and it has also eliminated the need for
copresence in the same space and time. Networked communication has also given
rise to a newer form of activism that is extremely easy group forming and does
not require a significant investment of time. Not all forms of slacktivism are
the same, however, and it would be a mistake to require all digital efforts to
achieve the same kinds of results. Those online and mobile efforts that make
use of existing real-world networks might indeed be more effective than even
traditional activism. If the purpose of activism is to affect social, political
or environmental change for or against a particular cause, slacktivism in and
of itself might not be what is effective. Perhaps what slacktivism is most
effective at is bringing attention to causes that would otherwise remain hidden
from the public’s view, and for this reason it is difficult to discredit. Clicks,
tweets, and texts might not sound very loud individually, but when they get
amplified by networked communication they can at least affect the conversation.